Editing 6 Hebe (section)

== History ==
Hebe was discovered on 1 July 1847 by German astronomer [[Karl Ludwig Hencke]] in the town of Driesen, [[Province of Brandenburg|Brandenburg]], [[Prussia]] (now [[Drezdenko]], [[Poland]]).<ref name=jpldata/> It is the sixth [[asteroid]] discovered. It was the second and final asteroid discovery by Hencke, after [[5 Astraea]]. The name ''[[Hebe (mythology)|Hebe]]'', after the [[Greek mythology|Greek]] goddess of youth, was proposed by [[Carl Friedrich Gauss]] at Hencke's request.<ref name=wudfagw-1947/> The first asteroids discovered had widely been considered [[planet]]s by astronomers, but the rapid discoveries of several new asteroids in the late 1840s complicated the classification of asteroids.<ref name="minorplanets"/> In the years following its discovery, Hebe was variously labelled as a planet,<ref name=wudfagw-1947/> small planet, or asteroid.<ref name="Gould1848"/> Eventually, throughout the latter half of the 19th century, the terms "asteroid" and "minor planet" became favored,<ref name="minorplanets"/> although some astronomers continued referring to Hebe as a planet in this period.<ref name="Luther1889"/>

Gauss chose a wineglass as Hebe's [[astronomical symbol]].<ref name=wudfagw-1947/><ref name=steger/> It is in the pipeline for [[Unicode]] 17.0 as U+1CEC0 𜻀 ([[File:Hebe symbol (fixed width).svg|12px]]).<ref name=astunicode/><ref name=pipeline/> As asteroids and their symbols grew in number, the practicality of assigning unique astronomical symbols to each asteroid was questioned. In 1851, astronomer [[Johann Franz Encke]] proposed a simpler system of a number{{mdash}}denoting the order of discovery{{mdash}}inscribed in a circle. For Hebe, this would be ⑥.<ref name="minorplanets"/><ref name="Gould1852"/>{{rp|80}} This system was widely adopted by astronomers, though astronomers eventually switched to using parentheses enclosing the number{{mdash}}thus <em>(6) Hebe</em><ref name="MPC-object"/> or <em>6 Hebe</em><ref name=jpldata/> in modern notation.<ref name="minorplanets"/>

On 5 March 1977, Hebe [[occultation|occulted]] the star [[Gamma Ceti|γ Ceti A]] (Kaffaljidhma).<ref name=Dunham1977/>